


absence, luminescent

by imgonebye



Series: broken cycle [1]
Category: Wayward Pines (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-13 06:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4511772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgonebye/pseuds/imgonebye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sometimes things just work out, I guess. Sometimes people surprise you.”<br/>Alternate ending to "Cycle". After David Pilcher's death, it is up to Kate and Theresa to pick up the pieces and move forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Caveat lector: this story features some pretty massive divergence from canon, obviously, and probably a lot of minor divergences as well, mostly in terms of various small details.

It is when Ben is knocked unconscious and she can’t tell if the blast claimed her entire solar system or just her sun that Theresa’s resolve shatters to shrapnel. Kate grabs her hand when she screams and does not so much as flinch when her vicelike grip turns slack or when she loses her will to scream and sobs instead, heaving silent, violent earthquakes as Kate’s arms enfold her.

“Theresa,” she whispers. “Theresa. Shh. Let it out. Ben is fine. Let it out.”

The blood smeared across Kate’s face is flaking off onto her cheeks and hair and it’s only the gravity of this memory of bloodshed and loss that impresses her into silence. She shudders as she pulls back from Kate’s embrace and looks her in the eye, really takes in the defeated slackness of her expression and the hopelessness in her eyes. The profundity of the loneliness in Kate’s face is haunting; Theresa realizes that she has lost everyone now, her allegiance to the present in Harold, her anchor to the past in– _oh God_ –Ethan. She reaches up to touch her cheek gently, and Kate blinks, staring back like Theresa just shook her awake.

“Hey,” Theresa says, and she has no idea where the confidence in her voice comes from. “Hey. Don’t do that. Don’t you dare go blank on me.”

Nothing moves in Kate’s eyes. She looks so . . . tentative, so out of place, and Theresa knows instinctively that she looks exactly the same, that the deadness in Kate’s eyes is mirrored in her own and in those of everyone else around her, the silent crowd who see everything and nothing, who embrace and release and feel no comfort because they aren’t holding each other for comfort anymore. They touch to remind themselves that there is still life.

“We can’t give up,” Kate says suddenly, and her chin wobbles just slightly, but enough for Theresa to know that she’s starting to believe it. “H–Harold wouldn’t want that. Ethan wouldn’t want that.” She chokes out their names and Theresa reflexively grabs her hand and squeezes it. “We can’t waste his sacrifice.”

* * *

The First Generation comes rushing in as a unit and stops dead at the sight of the armed guards that swarm to block their path. A young man, hunched and bloodstained, staggers to the forefront; when he straightens his back and winces, Theresa realizes that the blood is his own and that he is badly wounded.

Kate steps forward. “Jason,” she says, and her face is drawn taut. “What a . . . pleasant surprise.” She’s got a pistol pointed straight at his heart; there is an audible click as she flips up the safety.

“Where’s David Pilcher?” he demands. “How did you get here?”

Kate flashes the bright, vacuous, disingenuous Wayward Pines smile, the one that says _I’m innocent_ and _I’m guileless_ and _I’m terrified_ and _You know the answer_ and also _I’m trapped like a wild animal but not like prey like a wounded predator and I’m a panther dripping blood from my ribs I’m a lioness with a flesh wound I’m a stuck bull and an angry bear and I will rend you bone from bone and limb from limb if you let your misplaced confidence take you one step closer because I know your type and all you will ever be is prey, and once you lose the weapon you are fucked, you are gutted and hamstringed and I’ll feed your marrow to my pack and stake your head out for the world to see_. Her voice is saccharine when she speaks, but Theresa can see the violent pitch of her chest and feel the electric throbbing of adrenaline.

“Give me one good reason you shouldn’t be put into hibernation right now. All of you.”

“We know how to survive,” Jason says, and he manages a proud toss of his head. “We know the truth of Wayward Pines. David Pilcher chose us to lead the next generation through the flood and into the future.”

Kate snorts derisively and her grip on the pistol is two-handed and steady. “What the hell do you think we’ve been doing? The flood is over. Your ark is sunk. David Pilcher is dead.”

The First Generation surges forward like riptide and their gasps and murmurs–punctuated by one yelp from somewhere in the midst–sough like the sea. The guards push back and level their guns at the group, stilling them.

“You’re lying,” he says breathlessly. “I’m not going to save you–not any of you! Not even you, Ben, or you, Amy; you’ve chosen your side. You’ll sink with the rest of them. You’re all going to die like your traitor sheriff,” he gestures unsteadily to Kate, “like your coward husband.”

Theresa braces herself for the shot and is startled by the silence.

“Fine,” Kate says and relaxes slightly. She shifts the pistol to her right hand. “I’ll take you to Pilcher.”

Behind them, Pam lets out a startled, strangled giggle. Jason rounds on her. “What’s so funny?”

“He was going to let you drown,” Pam says. “You don’t get it, do you? The First Generation was the vanguard because you were the oldest ones in Wayward Pines that knew the whole truth. What’s the point of you when everyone knows?”

“I want to see David Pilcher,” Jason says, trembling. He glistens in the dim light, sweaty and pale from bloodloss. “I _demand_ –”

“He’s dead,” Kate says.

“Dead,” Theresa echoes. Kate glances at her out of the corner of her eye in an almost imperceptible flicker of movement; Jason gawks openly.

“I shot him,” Pam says wearily. “The bullet shattered his sternum and the bone shrapnel pierced his heart. He’s dead. Why else would we all be here?”

Jason stares at her blankly. In the split second of stillness Theresa can see the points of fracture behind his wild, glassy eyes and the pulse of a muscle in Kate’s cheek as she grits her teeth. She’s got two hands on the gun again, braced for the kickback; this time, she’s aiming for right between his eyes.

He lunges toward Kate, closing the gap between them, and Theresa cannot tell for the life of her whether or not he is intentionally propelling himself face-first into the barrel of the gun. There is a burst of sound and Kate’s face is splattered with blood again.

The First Generation offers up a wail.

* * *

The power has been back for three days before they finally begin to venture out. The few Abbies that did not hightail it out before the walls were re-electrified are being strategically decimated by groups of guards–and, to Theresa’s consternation, Kate.

“You literally don’t need to go with them,” she says as Kate slings the strap of the heavy semi-automatic across her torso, adjusting its weight so it hangs across her back. “You get that, right?” When Kate says nothing she grabs her arm, feels her (considerable) bicep swell under the turtleneck’s cable knit as she tenses, notes the dark, insomniac circles under her eyes.

“We need to rebuild,” Kate says brusquely, but she doesn’t shrug off Theresa’s grip. “We can’t live in the side of a mountain forever.”

“Yes,” Theresa says slowly, affecting the tone she’d used when Ben was a toddler to explain that he’d done something wrong. “But you do realize that you don’t have to go with them, right? You don’t have to put your life on the line every day because the guards can kill the Abbies without your help.”

“I–” Kate sighs and shrugs off Theresa’s grasp. “I’ve spent the last twelve, nearly thirteen years here doing _nothing_. I co-ran a toy shop and hosted block parties and nearly lost my mind out of boredom. I need to do something. I need to have a real value to these people. You know, I got married because I had to and you know what’s just so–so heinous about all of it? It took a bullet in his head for me to realize just how hard I’d fallen for him along the way. I spent so much time doing nothing that I forgot what it was like to do anything or be anything. I used to be a Secret Service agent, and all I’ve done in Wayward Pines is carve little wooden ducks and throw parties and–you know what, Theresa? I spent a decade telling myself that I was still the same Kate I was back in Seattle, Kate _Hewson_ not Kate _Ballinger_ , and that sooner or later I’d get out and there would still be a place for me–” Kate chokes down a sob and drops to sit on her cot with her face in her hands. “It took me so long to realize that I loved him so much, that’s what gets me. It’s like some goddamn sick joke. He was about to get shot in the head and he wasn’t even thinking about himself, just stared at me and mouthed ‘I love you’–”

Theresa suddenly realizes that her vision is blurry because she’s crying too. Kate looks up at her with stricken red-rimmed eyes and swears quietly. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I’m so sorry, Theresa, I didn’t mean–”

“It’s fine,” Theresa says, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “I think the worst thing we could do is pretend that we haven’t both lost so much.”

Kate tries to lie back but finds herself encumbered by the gun; she swears again and slips it up over her body. The strap pulls her hair over her face and she doesn’t bother to brush it away, not even after she’s placed the whole apparatus next to her bed. When Theresa sees that Kate’s shoulders are shaking from barely suppressed sobs she sits next to her and holds her until she feels her own tears flowing.

The guards finish off the last of the Abbies that day, and Kate falls asleep with her head in Theresa’s lap.

* * *

Pam refuses point-blank to assume her brother’s place as leader of Wayward Pines and won’t budge for anyone. “I think we don’t need another Pilcher at the reins,” she tells Theresa when she asks, and Kate gets the exact same response verbatim. It is becoming apparent, however, that there is a general consensus as to where the power ought to lie now that Pilcher’s throne and Ethan’s office are empty; Kate and Theresa, either by association or because of the responsibilities they have shouldered in the past week, have earned a surprising amount of respect, to the point that they are both consulted for almost every big decision.

“I don’t think we should have just one leader,” Theresa tells Arlene and Brad when they ask who will fill Pilcher’s position.

“Maybe a council? It certainly shouldn’t be unilateral,” Kate adds. “I mean, look where that got us. We can’t have just one person pulling the strings.”

When they have to choose a new head teacher for the newly revamped school, it is Kate and Theresa who nominate Pam; when they have to choose its name, it is Kate and Theresa who say a very polite and firm thanks-but-no-thanks to the suggestion of “Ethan Burke Memorial School”. And so it stands to reason, then, that when the newly appointed council convenes to discuss leadership, Kate Ballinger is named as the new Sheriff and Theresa Burke is appointed to the new position of ‘City Organizer’.

“What does a City Organizer even do?” Theresa asks as they lug a box of Pilcher’s surveillance equipment to the Sheriff’s office.

“Um,” Kate grunts as she shoulders the full weight of the box, hefting it onto her desk. “I have no idea at all.”

“I sound like some kind of glorified janitor.” Theresa leans against a cabinet and watches as Kate unpacks the box, organizing a complex system of keyboards and screens on her desk. Sans Pilcher, the Sheriff’s role is essentially to monitor the Abbies and maintain the integrity of the wall that protects them. A generator has already been set up in one of the empty cells as a backup system, and all that’s left for Kate is getting acquainted with the computer system. It’s harder than either of them expected, as the technology Pilcher used was developed decades after the two women were put into hibernation (not to mention that the most sophisticated form of technology Kate has regularly used over the last twelve years is a cash register).

“If you are, can you clean up this mess?” Kate asks with a smirk, pointing to the scattered packing material that litters the floor of her office.

“Not in your wildest dreams,” Theresa replies, and they share a small smile. “Will you be alright, by the way? Using his office?”

Kate raises her eyebrows and shrugs, looking for all the world like she hasn’t been staring off into space at the exact spot where Harold–

“Yes,” she says, and looks Theresa in the eye now. “Everyone who lives here has suffered some loss or trauma from the attack. If we want to move on, we’re going to have to confront our fears and losses. It’s 4028. Can’t live in the past forever.”

Theresa laughs and holds out her hand to squeeze Kate’s. “I’d suggest a toast if we had glasses. To the future of Wayward Pines or something.”

Kate lifts their entwined hands in a motion that mimics a toast. “To us?”

“To us,” Theresa replies.

* * *

Despite their insistence on openness and shared power, it becomes apparent that the mountain bunker will have to remain their command center and Wayward Pines their home.

“I think it’s like a Venn diagram,” Ben says to Kate as they clatter up the stairs (the lift still hasn’t been fixed, but it goes without saying that they would not take it even if it had been). “We’ve got to make sure there’s some overlap, because when there isn’t any then everything gets crazy. But I think people would feel safer if we could all stay here.”

“You know we can’t,” Theresa says. “There isn’t enough space for us and all of the people who were already here, not to mention all the people who are still–” She fumbles with words for a moment before finally settling on: “–down below.”

“What are we going to do about them, anyway?”

“I’ve been speaking to Pam,” Kate says. “She says we can’t wake them up now, and frankly I agree with her; we have way too much to rebuild. We’re going to discuss it with the council tomorrow so that we can come up with a long-term plan for waking them up and acclimating them to the massive sh–uh, _mess_ –that’s out there.”

They stop talking, breathless, as they continue up the seemingly endless stairs, flight upon flight, until they finally reach the top floor and stop to pant and clutch at the stitches in their sides.

“I–think I–get why–no one knew–about these stairs,” Theresa puffs as she catches her breath, pressing her flushed cheek to the cold metal wall. She glares at Kate and Ben, who have recovered much faster than she, although they both are tinged pink from effort as well. “How on earth did you–two recover so–ridiculously fast?” she demands, straightening to stand with arms akimbo in mock outrage.

“I run every day in P.E.,” Ben says. “Pam says I’m in really good shape.”

“Me too–not for P.E. though, obviously. I jog the border of the fence every morning,” Kate says.

Theresa sheds her bulky sweater as they head through the halls to their makeshift control room; the sign on the door reads “SITUATION ROOM,” but its effect is somewhat diminished by the fact that it’s written in felt-tipped pen on a piece of notebook paper and held up with two pieces of scotch tape.

“Amy did that,” Ben says with a grin. “She came here with Pam yesterday and they brought a bunch of computers back with them.”

The internet is a millennia-old daydream now but that hasn’t stopped them; some of Pilcher’s old team put together a series of databases of all available human knowledge, supported by a series of servers that occupy a whole floor of their bunker. Theresa has seen it and is perfectly happy not understanding any of it, from the blinking, quietly whirring servers and their nest of wires to the new system of cloud computing that, she is told, was invented specifically by and for Pilcher’s team. All she knows is that Ben comes home and tells her the most outlandish things about life after they were taken, like how in 2018 scientists learned how to prevent the cellular mutations that cause cancer with a vaccination from–of all things!–a chemical compound found in raspberries, but it wasn’t sponsored or funded for decades because good ol’ Big Pharma couldn’t find a way to patent a raspberry, or how, just before everything went off the deep end in a big, mutanty way, NASA began construction of an experimental colony on Mars designed to support human life and growth, or how radiation and overfishing had rendered the oceans unlivable but they had spend millennia restoring themselves and were probably fine now.

How wide and wonderful the world is, but for one genetic aberration!

Kate hands her a tablet and stylus before she sits down. “I got a call yesterday about you doing inventory on food and water supply,” she says. “And someone wanted to talk to you about, um, I think there’s a service lift that they’re trying to revamp for use by everyone. It’s accessible from the first floor.”

Ben stiffens. “They won’t fix the main one, will they?”

“I think the, um,” Theresa says uncomfortably, “the blast destroyed most of its mechanism and a lot of the doors so it wouldn’t be feasible.”

“Maybe we could just leave it?” Ben asks hopefully.

“Maybe,” Kate says; she takes a seat at the circular conference table in the center of the room and picks up a tablet of her own. “We’re certainly going to leave it for now. And if something like this ever happens again, it might be a good decoy entrance because the Abbies know where it is.”

Ben nods his assent. “That’s a really good idea, actually.”

“Thank you,” Kate says.

Theresa skims the list and sighs. Their most plentiful food source is grain, specifically wheat; 3,000 units of it, with one unit being the average amount of grain eaten by one household (averaging 2.13 members) in one year. She looks up and Kate has her boots on the table and her tablet propped up on her legs; she looks defiantly out of place among the luxurious furnishings that Pilcher was clearly so fond of, with her dirty boots scuffing the mahogany and her SMG hung by its strap across the back of the plush, ergonomic taupe leather chair, like some kind of guerilla war queen or dystopian heroine come to claim the spoils of her victory.

 _Anyway_. “We’re not exactly health food central, are we?” she asks with some frustration as she notes the caveats of FROZEN, DRIED, and FREEZE-DRIED next to almost everything in the fruit and vegetable categories. “A few of the First Generation kids mentioned that they wanted to take up farming, and I’m inclined to agree. We could zone a couple of the lots and convert them into farmland–”

“I’m not giving any members of the First Generation the chance to be the sole proprietors of any important knowledge about our survival ever again,” Kate says coldly.

Theresa glances at Ben, then looks pointedly at the door; he nods and leaves, stopping only to pick up a box labeled TABLETS - SCHOOL before he shuts the door behind him.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little bit harsh?” she asks Kate once he is gone.

“Actually, I think I’m being so generous that someone ought to nominate me for a Nobel prize,” Kate snaps, swinging her feet off the table to plant them firmly on the plush carpet, almost as if to ground herself. “I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I say that I completely refuse to trust them. You know they’ve been taught since they arrived that we’re stupid and expendable, right? And that they’re more important than us because they know more than us? We can’t give those–those proto-fascists power like that, at least not until we know exactly where their loyalties lie.”

“Okay,” Theresa says slowly, not totally disagreeing. She remembers the hate in Jason’s words and the disdain in his eyes and knows that there is truth to what Kate says. “But what are we going to do about them? We can’t cut them out of society until you’re satisfied, and we’re not putting them into hibernation.”

There’s a look in Kate’s eyes that tells Theresa in no uncertain terms that she would take no small pleasure out of doing just that. The real problem, though, isn’t that the First Generation was totally and shamelessly poised to stand by and save themselves as everyone else died horrible, gruesome deaths, but the trigger being pulled, the bullet shattering skull, the stinging splatter of blood and gray matter across Kate’s face as Jason executed Harold right in front of her. The problem is that Pilcher created for himself a standing army in his guards and then a second army of nationalistic, fiercely loyal sleeper cells. The problem is that Theresa spent less than a month under Pilcher’s rule while Kate spent twelve years, twelve long and frightened years dreaming of the outside world and plotting an escape (that would surely in its success have ended in her death) while almost literally under her nose _children_ were taught the truth of the world and guaranteed safety and peace of mind.

“I don’t know,” Kate says finally. “We’ll have to talk about that with the council.”

Their council, elected democratically on improvised, write-in ballots that first night in the bunker, has five members: Sheriff Kate Ballinger, City Organizer Theresa Burke, Mayor Brad Fisher, Head Teacher/Head Nurse Pam Pilcher, and Youth Representative Ben Burke. There is no official power structure but it feels like there is a tacit agreement that Kate is the one calling the shots, mostly because of how clearly Ethan delegated authority to her in his final hours. And because she knows that she could call the shots if she chose but nevertheless refuses. Theresa, too, gets a certain reverence because she is Ethan’s widow and because Kate so clearly relies on her and trusts her as well. She ought to be resentful that her position has nothing to do with her own merit, but she can’t be bothered to be. Not now, and especially not when she’s being given the chance to do so much good.

* * *

The worst part of her job is relocating the “displaced citizens,” the people who live alone because the Abbies claimed their spouses or children or parents or, in the worst cases, a combination thereof; she spends hours looking widows and orphans and childless fathers in the eye and when she leaves, she comes home to two more sets of eyes that have the exact same look behind them, like their hope has a heart murmur. Yes, two sets: Kate refuses any special privileges as the Sheriff and gratefully accepts Theresa’s offer to relocate to the Burke household.

Ben likens Kate to a steamroller, and her public persona is just that; like Ethan, her years in the Secret Service taught her to detach and compartmentalize, to set a goal in her crosshairs and carry it out to the best of her ability. She is _very_ good, so good in fact that Theresa thinks she might be the only one who sees the other side of Kate, the side that is heavy with loss and haunted by nightmares.

As per regulation, the queen bed she and Ethan shared (as “Partners”) in the master bedroom was replaced by two smaller beds for herself and Kate (as “Cohabitants”), which means that when Kate thrashes and groans in her sleep Theresa is there to shake her awake and rub her back as she shakes with impotent, vulnerable fury and embarrassment. It means that when Theresa is sitting awake at 3 A.M. because she can’t fall back asleep after waking from a nightmare about the Abbies, Kate is just a few feet away and probably in a similar state. It means that they whisper to each other in the night about everything and nothing.

 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Did you love him?”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Theresa, it was more than a decade ago. It’s not like I was going to rekindle anything with Ethan.”

“You know that’s not why I’m asking.”

“That’s true.”

 

 

“So?”

“I don’t know. I think I liked him, maybe could have loved him.”

“Hm.”

“If it makes you feel better, I think he just liked me too. But that’s the problem, I think. Like is more dangerous than love because you know it’s not going to last so you do a bunch of stupid and insensitive things to make it mean something even though you know it won’t. That’s what happened. We flared up then burned out.”

“I have to admit, I was so worried when I saw you here. I get it, you know, how close you get with your partner and how he couldn't tell me half of what he did and it all just laid itself out really, long hours with his hot partner and then boom, there you were again. I thought it was, like, fate or something.”

“Ha!”

“What?”

 

 

“I’m serious, what?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that I looked suspiciously old.”

“You don’t look old.”

“Thanks.”

 

 

“You’re not old. You know that, right?”

“Theresa, you have got to learn to interpret silences.”

“I’m not going to let you clam up on me.”

“Has it occurred to you that I’m trying to sleep?”

“I am too. I can’t. I know you can’t either.”

 

 

“Theresa?”

“Kate?”

“Why did you get over hating me?”

“Because I had to. And because I needed to.”

“Charming.”

“I should have been angrier with Ethan, but it was easier to be mad at you because I didn’t have to look at you every day.”

 

 

“Kate?”

“Hm?”

“Does it ever get easier?”

“No. You just learn to live with it. You become someone new and it’s like you’ve just grown a new skin outside your old one and it might protect you but it doesn’t change who you are or what you’ve lost.”

 

 

“Kate?”

“Yes?”

“I feel like I can sleep now.”

“Good. Me too.”

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I’m here, too. I’m glad we’re here.”

“We can be your family, okay? If you want us to be. If it would help.”

“I’d like that very much.”

“You can be Kate Burke. Kate Ballinger-Burke?”

“Ha.”

 

 

“Theresa? Are you asleep?”

 

  
  
“I lost everything that day, you know. If you hadn’t been there, I don’t know what I would have done. I think I would have died if you hadn’t been there. I think I would have wandered out into those woods . . . I don’t think I’ve ever owed anyone as much as I owe you. I hope someday I’ll be able to tell you–when you’re conscious–that you gave me a future and a belief in tomorrow.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She’s the best friend I’ve ever had."

“Testing, testing.” Kate’s voice crackles around the edges, warped through the new communication device and Theresa finds herself grinning _hard_ —like an idiot, she thinks—at the sound. She’s been smiling a lot recently. More than she has in years, in fact. Every time she does, she feels a flash of guilt because her happiness doesn’t come from some healthy source but from sorrow, destruction. Ethan is dead but she smiles, their community is in shambles but she smiles, it is 4028 and all Hell broke loose long ago and made its home on the land and they are the last bastion of humanity—not even Heaven, but Purgatory—but she _smiles_!

But she is happier than she has been in so long. And that’s a blessing, isn’t it? And a good thing? Because she’s making something positive out of negativity—because this means she’s still human, right? Still pulsing with conflict and filled with _hope_ , which is one of the most important things about humans. She has to tell herself this a lot because every smile still rings of betrayal.

“I hear you,” she says, then remembers that this doesn’t work like a cell phone. It does look a bit like an iPhone, but bulkier—it is a prototype after all, based on a more streamlined, walkie-talkie like device that Pilcher used to communicate with his team in the bunker. Every member of the council has one, and the techs tell her that they’re developing them for the rest of the town. She flushes as she taps the screen to open the line, grateful that no one was around to see that. “I hear you,” she repeats.

Kate laughs in response. Along with her voice come the sounds around her: faint crackling (probably a campfire), the rustle of leaves, and out of nowhere, a shrill, harsh cry that sends panic snapping up Theresa’s spine.

“What was that?”

“Don’t worry. It’s pretty far outside the wall,” Kate says. The sounds this time are a slight, dull thud and clothes rustling to accompany the leaves; the crackling grows slightly louder, then fades out entirely. Footsteps.

“I just heard you stand up,” Theresa finds herself saying. What she really wants to say is _GET THE HELL BACK HERE. GET AWAY FROM THERE!_ Wayward Pines has never really felt safe to her, but until recently, she’d thought of the electrified fences as secure. But now—she shudders to think of it, of Kate so close to the walls, the crush of Abbies outside. The fence may be formidable, but would it withstand an attack? She takes comfort in the live map she and Kate checked together this morning; it monitors the Abbies through a combination of tags, motion sensors, and heat sensors, and as of 8:00 AM, they were scattered across the Idaho countryside.

“The sound on these is incredible, isn’t it? Still a bit staticky, but I can hear you walking—I know where you are, actually.”

Theresa giggles despite herself. “Oh really? Where am I?”

“You’re walking past the school right now. I just heard the bell.”

“You’re good.”

“I am.”

Kate is climbing something; her breathing is slightly heavier, and her boots are clanging on metal now, instead of soil and grass. Theresa can see it in her mind’s eye: Kate climbs the stairs to the platform at the top of the wall and stares out at the forest, scanning the treeline for movement, ready at any moment to sling her rifle off her back and shoot . . .

“Hey, shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I am, actually.”

“What, you’ve taken up teaching in my absence?”

“Ha-ha. No.”

“So . . . ?” Kate prompts. Her footsteps have stopped now; all Theresa can hear is the snap of the breeze and her voice, curiosity and that tight edge that never relaxes.

“I’m setting up the computer centers across town,” she explains. “I’m meeting the techs at the school because they wanted to start here, just to make sure everything’s operational. I should probably get going,” she notes ruefully.

“It _might_ be a good idea to do your job,” Kate deadpans. “Listen, call me when you’re done, okay? I want to test the range on this thing.”

“Of course. Bye!”

Kate doesn’t close the line, and it remains open for a good ten seconds before Theresa can bring herself to. In that time, she hears another screech, this time fainter, like the Abby is moving farther away.

 

By the early hours of the evening, she has finished organizing the new computer centers. The techs all but order her to leave once they realize how little she knows about this new technology (“You could help me learn!” was met with a reproachful “Ma’am, we don’t have time to teach you if we want to get everything set up tonight.”). Theresa considers stopping by the Sheriff’s office to check on Kate, then remembers where she is and what she’s doing.

She fishes the communicator out of her purse, unlocks the screen, and selects Kate’s name from the glowing display..

“Hey. I’m done with work,” she says.

Kate opens the line almost instantly. “Hey.” It’s still just her and the wind.

“Still on that platform, huh?” Theresa asks as she walks home. She’s just a few blocks away; the last stop was the Biergarten, where the two remaining monitors have been set up in the back of the bar. The air is still warm, but it has a crispness to it that whispers of leaves changing color, of autumn then the cold of winter.

“You’re good. Different one this time, though.”

“Where now?”

“The one directly south of the house, actually,” Kate says.

There are only four platforms set up so far, so Theresa knows exactly where she is. “You’re not planning on spending the rest of the night there, are you?”

“I might. I can see a group of Abbies that seem to be, I don’t know, settled near here? At least temporarily. I want to see what they do.”

“I don’t like that,” Theresa says. That might be the understatement of the century. Strange Abby behavior sets off alarm bells in her head. Actually, any Abby behavior sets her on edge; she hasn’t forgotten them, gore-stained talons and teeth. She knows very little about these strong, post-human creatures, an amount of knowledge that is exactly enough to make her wonder: Would it really be out of the question for them to find a way around the fence? She stops in her tracks at their driveway, leaning against the picket fence as she digs her keys out of her purse. “Can’t you just watch them on the cameras?” she asks as she opens the gate and lets herself into the house, holding the communicator between her jaw and shoulder as she does.

“The cameras aren’t particularly helpful, honestly,” Kate says. “Their night vision is entirely based on heat signatures, so it’s atrocious at picking up detail. And even during the day, it’s just not the same. You can’t watch everything at once and follow individuals at the same time.”

“It would probably be too much to ask you to leave it up to the scientists, wouldn’t it?” Dropping her keys on the dining table, Theresa surveys the dimly lit room for options. No TV—at least, not yet—and she is acutely annoyed by the idea of spending the next six hours reading until she’s finally tired enough to go to sleep. It’s the 41st century, for crying out loud.

“Do you really trust them?”

Theresa sighs in response. “So you’re there all night, then? Do you at least have someone with you?”

The idea of Kate spending the night out by the fence with only a campfire and gun for comfort is not a nice one. She can feel an idea forming as she asks, and she smiles at the thought.

“Who would I take? Norma?” Kate snorts at her own joke, prompting a laugh from Theresa.

“I guess you’re right. You should get a deputy or something, okay? Wait—listen, I’ve got to do something really quickly,” Theresa says, catching the communicator again between her jaw and shoulder as she opens the refrigerator. “I’ll call you back in a bit, okay? But if something happens between then, you call me, you hear?”

“Ooh, what are you doing? No, don’t bother, tell me when you’re done. Talk to you later!”

“Bye!”

This time, Theresa ends the call instantly.

 

Theresa is aware that Kate is probably more than a bit concerned when, forty-five-ish minutes later, she still hasn’t called back. But for good reason: catching a ride to the edge of town took her longer than she’d expected, and picking her way through the forested area at the outskirts of Wayward Pines hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk. She’s nearly done now, though; she can smell smoke from Kate’s campfire and hear the faint buzz of the wall’s electric currents.When she breaks free of the trees, Kate is still on the platform, gazing out at the dark landscape.

“HEY!” Theresa shouts up at her, cupping one hand around her mouth to amplify the sound.

Kate swears audibly as she jolts, reflexively reaching for the gun slung across her back. She pitches and turns dramatically, stabilizing herself on the metal rail of the platform, then realizes who startled her and stops, clearly trying to look stern and failing as her face breaks into a grin.

“You really shouldn’t be here,” she scolds in a half-shout as practically leaps down the stairs.

“I think I’ll be fine,” Theresa says, holding out a bulky, foil-wrapped packet. “You’re not the only one with Secret Service training, remember?”

“What is this? Also, do you call this quickly?”

“What, worried about me?” Theresa teases with a smile. “And open it.”

The foil crinkles in Kate’s hands as she unwraps the object gingerly, then actually _giggles_ at the sight. “God bless you,” she says. “How did you know?”

“I figured you’d want some because you made the _weirdest_ expression when I mentioned making lasagna last night,” she says. “Like you were trying not to laugh and you went cross-eyed.” She mimics the face as she takes the foil out of Kate’s hands and begins to rewrap it.

“I do _not_ look like that,” Kate protests. “Why are you wrapping it? I’m hungry.”

“Patience,” Theresa teases her. “And it’s cold. I figured I could put it next to the fire to warm it.”

“Please, like I can’t eat lasagna cold?”

Theresa swats her hand away as Kate reaches for the foil. “I don’t care what you can do. You’re going to eat a proper hot meal and get some actual sleep tonight and stop acting like this is an episode of _Survivor_ or something, okay?”

“Yes, mother,” Kate says, and laughs in a low, infectious roll. 

* * *

“No more Reckonings,” Kate says, and it is law, recorded in the annals of Wayward Pines for the rest of eternity—or at least until the next society rises from the ashes of their own and decides, as it always happens, that they know better.

Not that anyone wasn’t expecting this, or that anyone was calling for Reckonings. They just have to log it because they are a self-governing body now and their rules come from the democratic council and by a plebiscite, and Kate’s decree is only law because they all want it to be so.

She’s next and oh _God_ she is shaking—slightly, _imperceptibly_ , she thinks, but Kate still presses a gentle hand to the small of her back to steady her as they trade positions. Leaning into the mic, she intones their next rule with a steadiness that surprises her: “No more secrecy.” Pam smiles warily from the front row of the impromptu seating they’ve set up, which is a motley of folding chairs, benches, and bleachers, not to mention a couple of wooden chairs she recognizes as the ubiquitous standard dining room set. “Also, we’d taken a vote on renaming Wayward Pines and we’re about tied, so, um, we thought it might be more definitive if we had actual names to choose from. We’re going to have a few places across town set up, like the Sheriff’s office and here and at the library computers and so on—they aren’t going to be hard to find or anything‒so you can go there and um, submit name ideas if you so choose and we’ll vote on them when we reconvene next. Just to be decisive.”

A man in the audience raises his hand; _Marc_ , Theresa thinks. She moved him into a new house just this last weekend. He lost his wife and young daughter to the Abbies.

“Yes, Marc,” she says, and he smiles when she says his name.

“I just wanted to know—what does ‘no more secrecy’ really mean? Specifically, I mean.”

“We mean that everything we know, you know,” Theresa says. “Every time we learn something new, we’ll share it with everyone. We—Kate and I—were talking earlier about how we can start adding all of our information to the databases, so there’s a public record and everyone can access it anytime. I don’t know if we’ll ever know all of Pilcher’s secrets, but we’re going to do whatever we can to learn them and share them.”

“Secrecy destroys us,” Kate says. Her face is a blank mask; Theresa knows that it covers guilt, self-loathing: Kate blames herself for a good portion of the destruction that took place. “We can’t survive in a society built on lies.”

A murmur goes up through the crowd, then applause; Brad Fisher stands and waves for silence, which is slowly achieved.

“This segues really well into our next order of business,” he says. “We wanted to set up media centers across town, so everyone can access our databases and monitor the Abbies’ movement, and things like that. There are a lot of computers in the mountain that we’ve been bringing down for the school, and there are enough that we can put some in the library, maybe some in various places—”

Members of the audience start shouting suggestions, and Theresa takes the opportunity to trade her place at the podium with Fisher, who begins noting the suggestions. Kate leans slightly toward her and whispers in her ear.

“That was great. You’re good at this.”

“Thanks,” Theresa murmurs back, fighting off a smile.

* * *

“What about living with Kate? Do you think of your household as a family unit?”

“This is going to sound stupid,” Theresa begins.

“You say that every time, Theresa,” Pam says. “You don’t need to dismiss your feelings like that.”

Theresa feels a flush riding high on her cheeks, as she so often does during these sessions. She likes Pam—in fact, she thinks that one of the most important things now is to talk things out, and Pam, having trained as a counselor after rehab, is infinitely valuable to her. But talking about everything isn’t as easy as she had previously hoped. What _does_ help is the clichéd chaise lounge that Pam set up in her new office. Theresa stares up at the ceiling tiles and it feels _just_ impersonal enough for honesty.

“I—I thought I’d resent her more, actually,” Theresa admits. “You know, she was everything I’d hoped to be—I quit Secret Service training because I wanted to raise my son and, you know, two parents in the Secret Service isn’t really the ideal situation, what with the hours and the secrecy and the—everything, I guess. It just seemed so unhealthy. So she’s his partner, and anything classified they dealt with, the stuff he couldn’t tell me—which would always be the worst things, you know—he shared with her. She understood him in ways I never could. She was younger than me, too, at the time, which is—you know. And just like, _really_ good looking, like you looked at her and just thought, _Jesus_ , what are _you_ doing in the Secret Service? So you’d think I would hate her, because that makes sense. I did for a while, too.”

“What changed?”

“I mean, I’m not sure, really. Being able to talk to her helped, because I never got that chance. And um, she’d been here for _so_ long.”

“Did you stop thinking of her as romantic competition because of that?”

“What, because she was older? Noooo . . . You know what I did think, though?”

“What?”

“She was twenty-seven when they started seeing each other or sleeping together or whatever. Ethan was nearly twenty years older than her, he was the more senior agent—twelve years later, she’s still younger than him. That’s weird, you know. I’m younger than Ethan too, but it wasn’t by that same margin. I’d never really thought about how, I don’t know, _creepy_ that is, you know?”

The tiles are white lined with gray and there is a stain in the lower right hand corner of the one directly above her that is shaped kind of like the state of Florida. Pam is quiet as Theresa maps its borders with her eyes.

“I mean, what he did, I think that ruined our marriage. I came out here to find him because I thought he might be with her because I needed to save the marriage.”

“Maybe the difference now is that you’re looking at this as being about people and not about your marriage?”

“Yeah, maybe? I mean—and this sounds terrible, I know—I feel like his death really gave me perspective. Not that I didn’t love him and not that I’m not still upset, I still miss him—but I think a lot of what happened after I found out was more about obligations and marriage than like, I am in love with you and I want to make this work.”

“I don’t think that’s terrible,” Pam says. “I think it’s important.”

“You know what’s weird, though? Having Kate around is basically like having him around, do you know what I mean? Like, there are just so many weird parallels.”

“Similar positions, you mean? Secret Service agents, Sheriffs—their old partnership seems to exist even now.”

“Yeah. It’s weird.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Theresa says, mapping Florida again. “I—it sounds so weird, even in my head, which is never a good sign, is it?”

Pam chuckles. “A lot of perfectly rational things sound like nonsense to us,” she says. “I think you should always feel free to speak your mind.”

“You keep telling me that. I’m trying, I promise.”

“So?”

“She’s the best friend I’ve ever had. I’ve only really known her for, what, a month? But I trust her implicitly. I’m doing all these things for her—just the other night, I brought her dinner out where she was by the wall, which is _far_. I’m really happy to talk to her, too. It’s just so easy to get along with her, and if you’d told me that when I first got to Wayward Pines I would have told you you were crazy.”

Pam was right; it doesn’t sound half as weird when she says it out loud. Theresa feels a bit more confident now, enough to turn and look at Pam, who smiles at her.

“Anyway. What do you think?”

“Do you want my opinion as a counselor or as someone who knows and cares for the both of you?”

It does not go unnoticed that she avoids calling herself a friend. This is a town of damages and of the damaged. Perhaps it is because the guilt is shared equally among them that everyone seems to blame themselves rather than others: it is _If only I’d spoken up_ rather than _Why did you allow this to happen?_ because _Why did you allow this to happen?_ instantly turns on the asker. Why did I allow this to happen? And at the end of the day, they were all powerless to stop Pilcher until the very end.

“Both,” Theresa says.

“Well, professionally I’d say that what’s at work here is twofold. First, you’ve come to know Kate as a human being and that familiarity means you can’t demonize her or blame her for anything.”

Back to the ceiling. The tile to the right of Florida is speckled with the same dark stains. It looks like dried blood. It probably is.

“Second, because Kate’s role is so intertwined with Ethan’s, there could very well be an element of transference at work here; you loved Ethan—maybe you stopped being in love with him at the end, but you did very clearly care about him—and Kate has unwittingly stepped in and filled his shoes. You’ve said yourself that you trusted Ethan and relied on him, and now you trust and rely on Kate, right?”

“What, she’s like, proxy Ethan?”

“No, she’s her own person. But she is associated with him, and that’s where this could come from. The roles have emotional significance, not the people. Speaking professionally, of course,” Pam hastily adds.

“And unprofessionally?”

“Unprofessionally? You love her.”

 _Wow_.

“Um,” Theresa says uncomfortably, raising her eyebrows at the ceiling. “I’m not gay or anything, you know.”

“Theresa, I’m not saying it’s necessarily romantic love—although, speaking professionally again, it _is_ interesting that your mind went there first—but that your shared experiences have led to openness, reliance on one another, and you’ve come to value and care about each other as people. It doesn’t have to be anything beyond that.”

“I like the transference one better,” Theresa jokes.

“Really? Because that’s the one that would actually imply romantic love, wouldn’t it? With your feelings for Ethan being transferred to Kate?”

She groans and rubs her eyes. “I can never win, can I?”

“There’s no shame in being attracted to her, you know that right? I understand that after a loved one’s death, there is a certain level of guilt attached to moving on, because we see it as an act of disloyalty, but it doesn’t have to be like that.”

“Not like Ethan was particularly loyal anyway,” Theresa replies with a snort. “But I’m not? I think? I mean I get it—Kate’s beautiful, and smart, and all these other things that I respect and admire. But we’re friends. I think it’s cohabitation that’s just making it all confusing.”

“Confusing? How so?”

“Because. Um. There’s this level of intimacy, you know? Waking up and someone’s always there, sharing space, sharing lives—it’s not like having a roommate.”

“It should be exactly like having a roommate, actually,” Pam says pointedly.

“Are we going to get back into the professional analysis? Because I think that was more helpful,” Theresa says, smarting just a little. _Pam could very well be right_ , says her traitor brain. _Not like I haven’t been staring at her all googly eyed, not like I don’t do things for her that I did for Ethan . . ._ But it’s trauma, isn’t it? The whole experience is one of healing, of mutualism, really. Support and friendship. Romance is so messy. It would ruin everything. _Which is why I’m denying it_.

 _NO_ , she thinks firmly. Plenty of explanations make sense, such as _respect—_ and mutualism, which is something she and Pam have been discussing at length. Interpersonal relationships are incredibly important for rebuilding themselves as a community—the restoration of the buildings is just the tip of the iceberg; trauma floats below the surface, icy nightmares and the way people flinch when doors slam, the contagious jolt of panic whenever someone shouts (or worse, screams). They are in survival mode, an unsustainable state of high alert.

“This is my professional analysis, Theresa,” Pam says shortly. “I’m suggesting answers. You don’t have to agree with them, but I’d appreciate it if you would at least entertain the notion of talking things out with me.”

“You’re right,” Theresa apologizes with a sigh. “I just don’t like the direction this is going.”

“Not to editorialize, but I think you’ve conditioned yourself to reject your feelings a bit too well, Theresa. You don’t have to agree with me, but I’d like you to think about how you react to your own emotions, regardless of who they’re for or what they are.”

* * *

“Hey,” Kate says one morning as they wake up. She sounds almost tentative as she rolls over in bed to look at Theresa. “I’ve been talking to Pam.”

“And?”

“I . . . don’t know. A whole lot of things, I guess. Some of the things she says make more sense than others.”

“Yeah,” Theresa says with a wry grin. “I’m getting that too.”

“I . . . yeah.”

Silence in which Theresa blinks and sits up, feeling awkward. Kate rubs the sleep from her eyes and rolls onto her back to face the ceiling again.

“Are you okay with it? Me being here, I mean?”

“What? Yes, of course,” Theresa says, startled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Pam said she thought we should talk about Ethan,” Kate says slowly. “You know the way she says things—”

“Like she knows something important that you don’t.”

“Yeah. So I figured it had to be that, you know, I kind of ruined your marriage, didn’t I?”

“Ethan ruined our marriage,” Theresa says firmly. “Ethan’s choice, not yours.”

“You can’t expect me to believe you don’t blame me at all.”

“I don’t. Not that I didn’t—I _really_ did. But it makes sense, you know? He has his wife and teenage son at home, all those responsibilities, can’t connect to them much, versus his young, attractive partner—it’s so clearly his choice, now.”

Kate is very still and very quiet.

“What?”

“I— _Jesus_. I don’t know. I mean, I do. Twelve years, you know? Twelve goddamn years. Eleven of them married. More than a quarter of my life in this place. I guess I’m not the same person I used to be, not after that.”

“It hasn’t been that long for me,” Theresa says.

“No. It hasn’t.” Kate laughs mirthlessly.

“What? Kate, what’s wrong?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what part of my life isn’t hopelessly fucked up,” Kate says, crossing her arms over her chest as she remains fixated on the ceiling. “I mean, what _haven’t_ I fucked up? What _hasn’t_ gone just so incredibly wrong? This—our friendship, being here with you—it’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me in years, and honestly, you should hear Pam talk about transference and bonding over trauma and all this shit—the only reason any of this has happened is because everything is so fucked up—”

“Hey,” Theresa interrupts.

“I mean, she’s said the same things to you, right? That I’m taking these roles that are emotionally charged or whatever, that we bonded over loss—I fucked up your life, Theresa. I fucked up everyone’s life. And I didn’t know about what I was going to cause in either situation, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s _my fault_ , and I really just don’t understand why you’re so okay with everything. I mean—twelve years, I still feel like shit for what happened with Ethan, and then when you two showed up I realized I’m probably never going to forgive myself—”

“We’re here because David Pilcher wanted to play God,” Theresa says. “Ethan chose to have an affair. I was connected to him, not you; I was hurt by his choice, not yours.”

“I’m too damn old for this,” Kate says.

“You’re not old,” Theresa snaps. She is suddenly struck by what this is about. Not that Kate isn’t being honest, but beneath all of the brokenness and the Ethan issues there are twelve years, the Kate continuum that begins at Hewson and is presently at Ballinger and continues into some unknowable future that, frankly, doesn’t seem all that bright. Twelve years. Years of youth squandered to Wayward Pines. Theresa knows how lucky she is that she had Ethan and Ben. Twelve years, and suddenly her ex appears, barely a day older than the day they parted. _Old_ isn't the problem. Time is the problem. But really, everything is the problem, a toxic cocktail of guilt and fear and insecurity, aged like bourbon for twelve years in Wayward Pines.

“I feel old,” Kate says. “I feel ancient.”

“Well, we’re technically like two thousand years old,” Theresa says, and is gratified to see Kate smile in response, however weakly.

Rolling onto her side, Kate finally makes eye contact with Theresa. “Thank you,” she says. “I mean it. I know I’m not being the easiest person to deal with right now.”  
“You’ve got every right,” Theresa says. “I mean—I’m not trying to rub it in—but I have trouble getting out of bed sometimes, you know? And I’ve got you and Ben. Your resilience is incredible.”

“Well,” Kate says with a smile, “I’ve got you, haven’t I?”

“Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that, actually. About something Pam said.”

“Oh no,” Kate says, and she’s only half joking.

“I, um. Just hear me out, okay, and if I’m wrong or something then we can pretend it never happened and we’re trauma bonding or whatever—”

“Aren’t we?”

Kate sounds so bitter. Theresa knows what this is—it’s what she’s been doing for weeks now, this closing up, half-lashing out, protecting herself but also, it seems, trying to protect others from herself. _That doesn’t make it acceptable!_ Kate isn’t getting the interpersonal part of the healing process. She just internalizes and then closes up, like she thinks that if she takes all the guilt on her own shoulders she can save everyone else from it. She thinks that if she tries hard enough, works hard enough, she can undo all the wrongs that have led them here—wrongs that began over two millennia ago. Theresa is _mad_ , madder than she’s been in quite some time. How  _dare_ she, honestly. 

“Oh, shut up,” she snaps. “I’m trying to tell you that I think I love you.”

Absolutely dead silence.

Then Kate giggles. “Oh,” she says, almost just an exhale. “That’s—oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Family love? Ethan version two love?”

“You know it isn’t.”

Kate sits up, half smiles in that tentative way that is remarkably like the way the sun peeks over the horizon, painting the sky a gradation of colors. Perched on the edge of her bed, Theresa half smiles back, equally tentative.

“Good,” Kate says, smiling full sunrise now. “Because I think I might as well.”

It is Theresa’s turn to giggle. “Say,” she says. “Kate, do you want to go on a date with me?”

“A date,” Kate says, testing the snap of the plosives over her tongue. “When?”

“Tonight,” Theresa says giddily. “I’ll cook you dinner. I think we should . . . talk about things?”

“Yes.” Kate stands up, only a little bit shakily. She looks at Theresa with that sunrise smile. “I think so too.”

* * *

In the end, the town remains Wayward Pines. It would be almost disingenuous to change it after all they've been through.

Kate watches the sunrise paint the sky, color rising over the wall, and represses a shiver at the smallness of it all. 

It is a little over a year to the day since Pilcher killed the power, and everything is so different yet still exactly the same. She hears soft footfalls behind her, the sound of Theresa shuffling out of bed to the bathroom. The tap runs for a few seconds. Footfalls again. From the kitchen, pans clamoring against one another as Ben tries and fails to quietly make himself breakfast before school.

"How long have you been up?" Theresa asks, joining Kate by her seat at the window.

"Only a little bit."

"Promise?"

"I promise," Kate says. 

"I like that you're sleeping more."

Kate exhales softly through her nose, one of those noises that is kind of a laugh but not quite. "Me too."

"What do you think?"

"Hmm," Kate says. "I think everything is getting better."

"I think so too."

Kate doesn't dream much anymore. It's not a great thing, but it is a better thing. She doesn't feel the splash of gore across her face every time she walks into her office. Everything is better, actually; there is a lightness in the people of Wayward Pines that wasn't there a year ago, or even eight months ago. Spring was good for them. Flowers grew from the hostile forest and a lone bird sang out in the wastes and people smiled in ways they hadn't.

She turns to Theresa, who is standing behind her in a bathrobe, glowing in the morning light. "I love you," Kate says quietly.

"Good," Theresa says, watching pink creep luminescent through the sky, followed by orange, then yellow. "Because I love you too."


End file.
